


Honey and the Moon

by lifeinwords



Category: Everwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-14
Updated: 2011-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-20 09:58:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeinwords/pseuds/lifeinwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All your dreams are waking up. Colin, post-coma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honey and the Moon

Colin asked his mom where that tune came from, the one that he hummed at odd moments, with words he could only half-remember. Something about telling a story before I go to bed, then I’ll be good. She said she’d taught it to him when he was little, and her eyes had squinted shut, like they were too full of joy. She thought he was remembering; that he had name-tags in his brain for every stupid song or face that floated between the empty spaces.

All he had were pieces that didn’t fit.

A big box of crayons and a new, empty notepad. The taste of dirt and tears in his mouth. A girl’s high laughter. Yellow balloons and candles. Blood oozing out of a knee between bits of gravel. Male voices echoing off tile. He recognized that one on his first day in gym, and thought maybe that memory was from a championship game or something.

***

The story thing sounded like a good idea, so Colin tried it, because lying in bed leads to thinking, which leads to anxiety and never to actually falling asleep. He’d seen an infomercial last week, before his Dad had come downstairs and asked him what he was doing up, and it was all about Zen meditating. He had pictured himself walking in a forest, on a green path under a golden sun, picking flowers; but then he’d thought about one hand that still can’t grip very well and skin too pale for summer light. It hadn’t worked.

He’d tried to think about before. About the way things used to be. He saw himself and Amy walking down school hallways, wearing a letter jacket that fit and feeling the power. Colin would take her to the drive-in on Fridays and they’d pass notes in class. Kisses would taste like lipstick and Amy’s ever-present Sprite; Bright would high-five him after practice; Laynie would steal the remote so she could watch...

Whatever she used to watch.

But thinking about Amy is complicated, and leads to Bright, which leads to sports and all the things he can’t do yet, sling or no sling. Physical therapy hurts more than Colin had expected. He spends it thinking about driving stick-shifts, typing, and undoing button-fly jeans.

He could remember things about Before, capitalized like there was Before Coma and After Coma, but he couldn’t remember the feeling of it. It made his head ache. He’s blank, or maybe it’s everything else that’s blank. There are no words that can tell him anything.

***

He’d tried fairy tales next. But they were dark and bloody, all about toes cut off and stomachs cut open, and when Colin thought of the witch in Snow White he smelled burnt rubber and oil, heard glass breaking and a final crunch. Colin isn’t sure he knows how they end anymore, anyway.

Besides, those stories aren’t real, and Colin’s found that his mind won’t relax into a story it doesn’t believe. So he starts small: he’s watching a movie, some silly movie he doesn’t care about, with Ephram.

Ephram, who’s simple and new, with no back-story that Colin’s missing, who looks at Colin with nothing in his eyes but hello.

Or he’s studying in the library, borrowing Ephram’s history book because he’d left his at home, and they whisper the answers to each other over a student-sticky table. Ephram’s always humming under his breath, almost mouthing words (because he does that when he’s happy, he’s happy around Colin, Colin makes him happy), as though he’d rather be where that song is playing. Maybe in a crowded club, somewhere dirty and dark and New York, full of pierced and dyed heads bobbing slowly up and down. If Colin were there too, he’d have to lean close to Ephram’s ear to talk, and they’d be crushed together in the smoke and sweaty heat. He’d feel right at home.

Those stories work better, and Colin could use one for five days before he had to make up something new. They lull him down and in, back relaxing into the mattress and brain finally stopping. But then he starts noticing Ephram more, so he can make up more stories about him, and the dreams stop being as soothing.

***

Now Colin knows that Ephram’s hair is stuck into place with gel and prickly at school, like he’s nervous and tense when people are watching. He gets softer after four; he’ll smile and his hair will fall forward and brush Colin’s neck when he points out the reading assignment. There are more accidental touches, or maybe Colin just notices them now. Now Colin knows that Ephram smells like green things, grass and tea and trees. Now Colin feels heat from Ephram even when he shouldn’t be able to, from across a classroom or a parking lot. He notices Ephram’s hands, which are as pale as Colin’s but move perfectly, gracefully.

Now the stories involve lots of leaning in, once Colin figures out how he wants things to go, which really doesn’t make falling asleep any easier; but he doesn’t know what comes next. He doesn’t know what to do. Kissing Amy in real life was a lot easier. She just assumed he knew what he was doing, and Colin could just go along, lean this way and open this far.

Tonight Colin can’t get to sleep, and he doesn’t believe any of his own stories. He pushes his toes against the foot of his bed without thought; apparently he’d grown a few inches in the coma, because his old pants were inches too short and now, so was his bed. The sheets itch at the hair on his legs, and he swats off the coverlet with a sigh.

His mouth still tastes like toothpaste, and Colin wonders what Ephram’s mouth tastes like. The pillow’s slipped back between the mattress and the headboard from all of Colin’s twists and turns, and Colin reaches up for it with one hand and down between his thighs with the other.

The nurses had told him it’d be a while before everything…worked right. At first Colin wasn’t sure what they meant, but seeing Ephram in his mind made his neck sweaty, his palms itchy, and started a tight swollen heat in his groin, which had happened before, but he’d never made it happen before. Just by thinking about someone. And as long as he’s awake, he may as well tell another story, one that isn’t real and will never happen and sure won’t make him fall asleep.

***

The room is almost bright from the uncovered windows, letting in the moon and the night air, and Colin starts there. He’d be...sitting on the porch. Ephram’s porch. Waiting for Ephram to get home from the movies, carrying his backpack and a tight knot of expectation. He hears a cough from the left, and he gets up to check. Ephram’s huddled between the house and the garage, smoking. Colin didn’t know Ephram smoked, and tells him so. He takes the cigarette out of Ephram’s hand and inhales once, sharply, almost coughing but finally letting the smoke out in a slow stream. Then he flicks it away and leans in, so close that all he can see are Ephram’s eyes. Ephram says, Ephram says—no.

Again.

Ephram would pass him a note in History, flicking it lightning fast into Colin’s lap, across Sharon’s desk and below the teacher’s radar. They’re supposed to be reading about World War II, but Colin’s about as bored as he can get. History really isn’t his subject. Ephram’s note is tiny, not folded into some intricate girly thing but twisted up into a box, and the words are so small and light he can barely read them. “Want to get out of here?”

Then they’re running through the parking lot, gasping, and the sun is hot on Colin’s hair. They’re in the truck, fumbling against each other. Ephram whispers “sorry” whenever he bumps Colin’s elbow into the dash, but he’s warm and heavy and it’s his dad’s truck, they can’t do it there (what are they doing it’s the truck the truck that doesn’t exist except as a twisted heap towed from the crash), they hear voices so they scoot down away from the window and Ephram’s hands are moving down and they’re cupping him, the leather seats are burning the back of Colin’s arms and—no.

Again.

***

He’s always blurry in his own stories, like he lives in the edges of some unseen body, but he can always see Ephram’s outline filled in, leaning in. Eyes closed, and his lashes are so long, his chin jutting out as he sucks in a breath, smelling Colin, fingers rubbing and twisting the hem of his t-shirt. Ephram would stop leaning when he was pressed so close to Colin that neither of them could breathe normally, hipbones grinding in and up, in and up. Then Ephram is kissing someone, but it’s not Colin, it’s Laynie, stretched up on her toes and clutching his arms; and Colin sits up with a gasp, hand falling away from his cock to cover his eyes.

Thinking of Ephram is sick and wrong and too unbelievable for even him. And now he knows it. So Colin thinks of Amy, which is softer and calmer and doesn’t make his throat feel empty and aching.

Maybe he would catch her dancing in the backyard, see the car pulling in after dance practice and follow it, hands cold and clenched in his pockets. Her dad would smile as he walked in the house, looking back once at Amy, headphones on and oblivious, spinning in perfect circles across the lawn. Her ballet leotard would cling tightly as she dipped, a floaty skirt swaying over her black dance pants.

It was some mixture of ballet and what he’d seen at the homecoming dance, the ten minutes he was there: rhythmic hips and rolling shoulders moving quickly into what Colin thinks is a pirouette. She’s arching and bending, left leg swinging up, hands fluttering gracefully over her head. Colin didn’t know she could move like that, free and open and happy. He can see it on her face, even though her eyes are closed.

He doesn’t know how to dance.

Ephram does; Colin had seen him at the dance too, off in the darkness of the gym’s corners. He had moved like no one was watching, smooth and fluid and unpracticed, all the parts of his body doing exactly what they were supposed to at the same time. Ephram would know what to do, would go up to Amy and say “I can’t dance,” so she’d teach him, putting his hands carefully on her waist and rocking back and forth slowly.

His feet would stumble but she’d catch him, smiling up just a little into his eyes (smiling just for Colin/Ephram), and she’d lean in, hair brushing his cheek, and he smells leaves and black tea and it’s Ephram, twisting his arms around Colin’s neck and hanging on. Ephram tastes like honey and autumn leaf-burning and rain and lemonade, and he’s whispering into Colin’s mouth, writing “mine” and “always” and “now” with his tongue, sucking Colin in so he doesn’t need edges because he can feel Ephram’s everywhere, pushing and holding and keeping him together.

And Colin doesn’t really believe it, but he’s shaking now, licking sweat from lips sticky and swollen from Ephram’s tongue, not his, guilt and want shivering over his skin. He uses his right hand because it’s like Ephram, who wouldn’t know that Colin was whole and strong (it was a secret no one knew kiss me and I’ll be well I’ll wake up), he’d be gentle like Colin will break and Colin would, he’d break right open and scream a little and maybe cry and it’s a relief, a rush, everything he’s ever leaned in for.

Colin wipes himself off and flips onto his stomach, shaking and choking and wanting to stop thinking, feeling, seeing anything but darkness.

***

Once upon a time Colin’s story comes true. But not in any way that Colin expected.


End file.
